We've done two "dwarf" Planets this year. Now where to next?
Long, long ago, back when most of you weren't even glint, heck, when most of your PARENTS weren't even a glint in their parent's eyes, a long dead president made a speech in which he made two promises about outer space; first, we would go to the Moon before the decade was out, second, an " ambitious exploration of space...perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself."
We all know about JFK's first promise, as to the second, depending on how you define it, it was fulfilled too. Perhaps when Voyager 1 barrolled through the heliopause into interteller space, or perhaps last week when New Horizons flew by Pluto, which at the time of that speech was considered the 9th planet. Or...it could be in 2019, when that same spacecraft flies by one of two Kuiper belt objects. That is if the Republicans decide to pay for it.
That's right, the NH probe third and final port of call may be whizzed by silently without any pictures or data being taken. Fortunately, NASA will probably get the funds. The Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan and currently headed by Bill Nye the Science Guy, is on the case. (Yeah, it's a lobby like any other. Good guys need lobbyists too.)
Every five years or so, NASA's Planetary science department holds a grant contest for planetary missions called Discovery. The Discovery program are cheap probes to planets major and minor, and now that we've seen the big "nine", we have enough information and technology to go and look for the really interesting and important stuff.
So what's on this year's list? There are 28 proposals, in total, about 20 of which will fall by the wayside. There's the The Enceladus Life Finder (ELF), which will go all the way to Saturn an see if that moon's polar plumes have organic chemistry. Then there's the Io Volcano Observer (IVO) which will observe the second coolest world in the Solar System. Io looks like a pizza and has volcanoes that erupt daily. It would also observe Europa, and see if it has geysers. Europa is the most important target for exploration as it's the most likely spot in the solar system besides here on Earth that has life. If there's somewhere else in this solar system that has life, then it must be everywhere.
Asteroid 16 Pyche is one of the largest in the main belt. What makes it important is that it's made entirely out of METAL instead of rock or ice, There's nothing like that anywhere near that size in the solar system. Now that we've seen Pluto, this is the "juciest" unexplored object that would be easy to get to.
There also proposals to the Trojan asteroids following Jupiter at one of the lagarian (sic) points, and a balloon that would explore Venus just below the clouds.
Right now, Congress has just funded a Europa probe, which is something NASA doesn't really want to do. Finding life is a scary business after all. ET may just be a bacteria, but that would be enough.
Also, what's going on NOW is really cool. They found a crater-free icy crust on Pluto, and a geyser on Ceres, things that are totally cool.
Next year, Juno arrives at Jupiter to figure out what the inside looks like. Let's hope they fund the Pyche mission.